In a teleconference with supporters last week, North Carolina NAACP president Rev. Dr. William J. Barber (whom our own Denise Oliver Velez has called "a fiery prophet for social justice") previewed plans to call on civil rights supporters around the nation to join him and thousands of us on July 6th 13th in Winston-Salem, NC for what he called "our Selma." Why Winston-Salem? Why July 6th 13th? And why should you plan to join us then? Because it is time to say 'no' to Republicans' efforts to do away with our right to vote.
Can't you see the sunshine?
Can't you just feel the moonshine?
Ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind?
Yes I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind.
In August of 2013, less than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina's governor and notorious Koch-puppet, Pat McCrory (R), gleefully signed into law House Bill 589, the Voter Information Verification Act (note the ironic acronym: VIVA), declaring:
North Carolinians overwhelmingly support a common sense law that requires voters to present photo identification in order to cast a ballot. I am proud to sign this legislation into law. Common practices like boarding an airplane and purchasing Sudafed require photo ID and we should expect nothing less for the protection of our right to vote.Like most political speech, there's at least a tiny grain of truth here, albeit encrusted in an impenetrable shell of obfuscation juggled with sinister legerdemain. For, in 2011, Public Policy Polling indeed found that 66% of North Carolinians supported a voter ID requirement in principle. But what McCrory's signing statement failed to note was that, according to a contemporaneous PPP survey, only 39% of Tarheel State voters supported the very bill he was signing.
To understand the reason for this dramatic difference between Carolinians' apparent support for the Platonic ideal of voter identification on the one hand, and their opposition to the harsh reality of the law enacting it on the other, is to appreciate why Rev. Barber and the NAACP will ask supporters of civil rights nationwide to converge on Winston-Salem this July for the crowning action in this year's Forward Together Moral Monday demonstrations.